Tuesday, May 19, 2026

New Pop Star Sombr Is a Streaming Machine With Millions of “Records” Sold, More Even That Justin Bieber’s Latest

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Sombr, aka Shane Boose, is a streaming machine.

He’s had two big hits all year — “Back to Friends” and “Undressed.” They’ve never been big on iTunes, but man, they are all over Spotify and other platforms.

Sombr released an album recently that was slow to take off on iTunes. It’s called “I Barely Knew Her,” and at first his fans weren’t buying it.

But now “I Barely Knew Her” is in the top 10, probably after the MTV Video Music Awards brought him to a bigger audience.

The album has already sold more than Justin Bieber’s latest — over 500,000 equivalent copies.

Meantime, both of the singles — also sticking in the top 10 — have sold about 1.5 million streaming equivalent copies.

Sombr is a hit. At 20 years old, the native New Yorker is the son of two media folks (dad Andy Boose arranges events for amFAR and Elton John’s AIDS Foundation, mother is amFAR PR flack). He’s a 7ft string bean with a massive social media following, and that’s paid off. Not to mention the singles are very catchy.

Is a Grammy nomination coming for Best New Artist? Probably. Hold on.

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Roger Friedman
Roger Friedmanhttps://www.showbiz411.com
Roger Friedman is the founder and editor-in-chief of Showbiz411. He wrote the FOX411 column on FoxNews.com from 1999 to 2009 and previously edited Fame magazine and wrote the "Intelligencer" column at New York magazine. His bylines have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the New York Daily News, the New York Post, Vogue, Details, and the Miami Herald. He is a voting member of the Critics Choice Awards (Film and Television branches), and his movie reviews are tracked by Rotten Tomatoes. is articles have appeared in dozens of publications over the years including New York Magazine, where he wrote the Intelligencer column in the mid 90s and covered the OJ Simpson trial, and Fox News (when it wasn't so crazy) where he covered Michael Jackson. With D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus, he co-produced the 2002 documentary "Only the Strong Survive," which screened at Directors' Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival.

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